Saturday, 26 July 2014

And after that last Dalek Extravaganza (she exaggerates happily), back to the regular and eccentric reading of the Who books! This post: treats from the eras of the First, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, and even some that don't exist on TV, via a short story collection.

A note on order.Target Originals are not read in order of publication (which was all
over the place), but in order of each Doctor, and each Doctor is read in order
of their stories broadcast on TV.However, I jump about in terms of which Doctor I read at any given
time.The Virgin New Adventures for
Sylvester will be read in order; as will the BBC 8th Doctor series
(as though they had been on TV, see?I’m
trying to get an arc flavour).The BBC
Past Doctors series and the Virgin Missing Adventures are simply read in terms
of which one I fancy next, as they are stand alone adventures slotting
in-between the TV ones.

Oh, and in case you forgot, I’ve taken to recording which
books I read that are actual paper copies, and which are Kindle or other
electronic.I’m being social historical
for my own benefit. I want to see how long it is before I just plug books
straight into my brain, how many years before I’m a reading cyborg.

As always with these
rambly reviews: SPOILERS ON ALL BOOKS IMMINENT!!!!

Doctor Who: Mark of the Rani, by
Pip and Jane Baker (Target original)
(6th Doctor.Hmmm.I really enjoyed watching this one, but
found the book unconvincing.Partially because of some clumsy and hackneyed word and phrase
usage; and partially because I objected to the whole yurning into a tree
thing near the end.For some
reason, I found this perfectly plausible to watch, and an insult to my
intelleigence written.Maybe it’s
the way it was written?I wanted to
get a nice feel of the age and its values and problems, its atmosphere –
as I felt I did do watching; but reading I just felt like I was having a
story told to me, with action driving, and hardly any extras that I would
have found interesting, handled at all.A failure, for me, as a historical – but unsure why this is.Don’t want to buy in on the Pip and Jane
bashing I see elsewhere, though I do think, as I said, some of the writing
was lazy.I think its possible this
story was considerably thinner than it appeared on watching, a fact hidden
by the excellent BBC mastery of the look
of a historical story – which my eyes would have been very busy enjoying,
and that the tale may have lacked sense in the first place…ACTUAL BOOK.)

Doctor Who: Planet of the Giants, by
Terrance Dicks (Target original)(1st
Doctor.HMMMMMM.I think this on should nowadays be
called Planet of Monsanto.Its
seems oddly prescient with all the discussion we have now about GM food,
and pesticides that kill bees and wreck the basis of the food-chain, that
this story handled a very similar issue in the ‘60s.I enjoyed this one, slightly told though
it was, and read in two short evening spates.It was very visual, full of Barbara being
histrionic and rightly, and felt oddly plausible despite it being sort of
silly – miniaturization stories have never done it for me, except for The Fantastic Voyage! A small and
sort of silly story that tackles some very real and vital issues – what an
odd combination…ACTUAL BOOK.)

Doctor Who: Delta and the Bannermen,
by Malcom Kohll (Target original)(This is such an
interesting one.When I first saw
it on TV it almost derailed my Sylvester marathon and appreciation
completely [I wasn’t watching in order, and had just seen Battlefield and
Ghostlight, so it had stuff to live up to].But then Fluffhead liked it a lot, so I
ended up watching it many manyMANY times.The more I did, the more I appreciated
its quirkiness.I loved the
countryside setting, I loved the Navarinos, I loved Ken Dodd, I loved
Delta and her sad dignity. I found Billy’s wanting to change species to be
with her very sweet.I even didn’t
mind the green baby, the annoyance of the Bannermen – who were really very
bad soldiers when you think about it and the minute their leader was gone
they just fell apart.Tsk.I felt oddly unconnected to it while
reading; then about half way through I clicked in and enjoyed its oddness
immensely – Goronwy and the honey – what is that all about??What a strange
and unnecessary character; but I’m very glad he’s there. ACTUAL BOOK.)

Doctor Who: Short Trips and Side Steps:
Short Story Anthology, edited by
Stephen Cole and Jacqueline Rayner (BBC)(There were 3 BBC Short Trips collections of short
stories, before Big Finish took over, and of course, I have logically
started on the 3rd and last one.I saw some reviews of this one before
reading – not usually something I do, it was an accident – and I can see
why a lot of people weren’t that enamoured of this collection.I can’t – yet, obviously – speak for the
quality of the other 2 BBC Short
Trips, but this one was patchy.I can see from the Introduction that they wanted to have fun and
play with the concept – have new Doctors there never were; have some
homage pastiche type stories; tell sillier humorous stories, or stories
that were alternately dark and light and silly or just playful.Some of these work, and some of them are
…well, when I was in my heyday of horror film watching [she says, settling
down for a quick anecdote the way American TV so often does], I used to
absolutely HATE when I saw a film that spoofed horrors.I used to like my horror straightand that was that – I wanted it scary
and gruesome.Not ironic or self
referential or any other genre pastiching shitey.Nowadays, if its done well, and there
are lots of references that make me feel a bit sort of sad trap clever, I
don’t mind a spoof so much…but this short story collection is a spoof in
many ways.So if you like your Who
serious and straight and in
character for each era – then there are bits of this you won’t like
because it messes with parts of the concept, and outright mocks in
places.Depends if you feel
humourous when you come to read it as to whether you’ll feel its
affectionate mockery or blasphemy.Some stories I really liked: The
Longest Story in the World [quirky Who genesis tale]; Special Occasions 1: The Not So
Sinister Sponge [where Gareth Roberts accompanied by Clayton Hickman
does what he does so it works just fine and I didn’t find the idea of a
planet made of desserts any weirder than you’d really think I should –
that was also when I realised how odd this collection was going to be]; Nothing At The End of The Lane, had
several parts to it [Daniel O’Mahony tells just about the most disturbing
and nightmarish story for the mentally nervous I’ve read in some time – it
infected my ideas about Barbara for quite a while after reading – this one
was VERY disturbing – serious scary, almost Adam Nevillish].The
Android Maker of Calderon IV was short sweet and snigger funny; Revenants was clever but I did not
like the imaginary new Doctor at all [is this simply my prejudice against
open toed shoes and that kind of hair?????].The
House on Oldark Moor was walking a very fine line between serious and
pastiche and did it very well, as did Countdown
to TV Action which chose to attack that line a different way [“I’m a
Scientist!”].Monsters by Tara Samms had a realistic and very tragic
feel.A real issue dealt with
scarily from a psychological point of view, in the middle of a Doctor Who
story – I liked that. Storm in a
Tikka, was outlandish but very well written and I liked the story not
being disturbed by the fact it was humourous.Vrs
– right at the end of the book and a one liner not a story [just the kind
of thing I’d tell as a parody story to Fluffheadto make him laugh before bed], will test
your ideas of what you think is funny.This was a good collection, in that some of it was so inventive and
funny.And some of it will appeal
to others!The Daniel O’Mahoney was
my favourite story just because it had SUCH a strong tone and really caught me because it’s use of
language and its atmosphere never let up – even when you find out what is
going on, its still a
nightmare.ACTUAL BOOK.)

Doctor Who: Paradise
of Death, by Barry Letts (Target Original)
(This was one of the slowest burning books I’ve ever read.I was quite bored by the beginning,
especially the cliché overemphasis in the vocalisation of Sarah Jane.I also couldn’t stand Chairman Freeth
and Tragan – two more overdone villains of each type you couldn’t hope to
find.But I persisted, and about
halfway through the book – which is a lot longer than I usually persist –
I started to find it good.Once it
got to the offworld planet and issues of virtual reality, the rapine that
could grow anywhere and be made into anything [another Monsanto prescience
there by author], and the strangely spiritual Onya, I became more and more
engrossed.Sarah Jane’s affection
for Waldo and the many small details that started to make the pictured
world more and more interesting and real pulled me further and further in
till I felt I was watching something as epic, sparkly and tacky as the Flash Gordon remake – and that is
not an insult, its one of my favourite films!So after a very bad start, I ended up
liking this one an awful lot.I
haven’t yet heard the radio play it’s based on, written for – though I
have it.I’ll review that
separately when I get to it.ACTUAL
BOOK.)

Doctor Who: The Revenge of the
Cybermen, by Terrance Dicks (Target Original)
(I enjoyed this one a lot more than when I saw it on TV.I had forgotten everything after the
initial 2 episodes I always end up watching with Fluffhead.I thought the 2 factions and their use
of the gold, their infighting etc well written.I felt sorry for Sarah Jane and Harry
who seemed to spend a lot of the plot being hapless and getting ill or in
the way, or trying to help and creating further complications…which, I
know, is the definition of what a ‘companion’ is for in this era of Who
writing…but it was a little heavy handed.However, I enjoyed this one – there was more to it than I
remembered, which was good.ACTUAL
BOOK.)

Doctor Who: The Curse of Peladon,
by Brian Hayles (Target Original)(I appear to be alone
in having enjoyed this one on TV and also having enjoyed the book!I like the politics of Peladon, I like
the fanaticism of Hepesh and the indecision of a young king stuck between
tradition and new ways.I like the
portrayal of the Ice Warriors in particular, their resourcefulness and
honour.I liked Arcturus turning
out to be a villain!I like Jo
getting opinionated and shouting at just about everybody by the time the
book is over!I like the way I
ended up counting how many times Jon Pertwee said ‘old chap’ to someone [I
started counting a third of the way through the book so I don’t actually
have an accurate total to report back to you!].From the materialisation of the TARDIS
on the cliff through to the attempted coup at the end and the politics in
between, I found this one chuntered along very satisfyingly.I was pleased!Also, I do love the ‘haroon haroon
haroon’ bit!Which they do not
actually use as a direct quote in the book, it merely says: ‘the Doctor
chanted’ – which is a shame, as it’s a very memorable moment.ACTUAL BOOK.)

Just as I threatened some considerable time back - here is a themed post from the Who Readathon (and, er, now Listen-athon too). I realized I'd gotten to a stage with the reading where purely through my lackadaisical (yet highly logical!!) way of selecting what I read next, I had lined up several dalek stories. So I added a bit of audio to it, and here we are. THE DALEK SPECIAL!

Doctor Who, Short Trips: Dalek Empire,
ed. Nicholas Briggs, various authors, Big Finish hardback)(Many Doctors, in different segments. This was the first Short Trips short story collection
I’ve read, and I liked it very much.The stories were all linked, across different timelines, and in
different parts of the same long story event: a massive dalek invasion. Stanley informed me
that the whole frozen dalek army under Spirodon was done first by the
comic strip years ago, and Big Finish must’ve borrowed this storyline for
this part of their long dalek arc. There were some really affecting stories in here;
for the first ever time, I understood why people find the daleks
scary, as an idea, and it wasn’t just the section at the end explaining
why they had death camps and seemed totalitarian being explained in terms of
human history and the last great war disaster we lived through.It was their implacability and loathing
of the unlike – which I know has been shown in many of their stories
before, but I got it here, felt
it, for the first time.The
consequences and choices of war were well done in this collection: ordinary
people shown betraying each other to protect others, their families, were
well written in Natalie’s Diary Part
3 by Joseph Lidster.A child
getting in the way of 2 old veterans and getting killed in the crossfire,
in Museum Peace, by James
Swallow.What it feels like to lose
hope, and realise you are a traitor, a collaborator, but yet may be able
to do some good, in Suz, by
Sharon Gosling.There wasn’t a duff
story in the whole thing; it was all good.Lots of this book was a downer, because it was about people at war
making terrible choices, being oppressed, limited options.There was no Boys Own about it.Heroes – but tarnished ones, unlikely accidental ones [an
opportunist comedian gets the credit for some good the Doctor did at one
point].Yet I liked it; me who
NEVER reads war books.ACTUAL
BOOK.)

Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks,
by Terrance Dicks (Target Original)(Fourth Doctor. Hmmm.I have watched this one to death with
the small one, and I never enjoy it that much.Despite the iconic “Do I have the
RIGHT?” moment of anguish for the Doctor wondering if he should destroy
the daleks or not, I always feel the story is sad, grey, flat and I can’t
wait for it to be over.I found the
same of the book, which surprises me, since usually the ones I don’t enjoy
on TV I enjoy much more in book form.The only think I found I did enjoy more than watching here, was
reading about Davros’s cunning and manipulation, his scheming and
planning.I felt myself struggling
to understand him and his motivations [I was trying for a bit more depth
than ‘he’s clearly insane’].I
didn’t succeed on getting any more depth, but I enjoyed thinking about it
and felt drawn in.But overall, I
was really glad to see this one end.I didn’t feel the daleks were any more or less unarresting for me
than usual.I felt Harry was
underused, and Sarah had the best action.

I felt the ‘muto’ character Sevrin was tragic and noble; and also too
simplistic.I think I can say that
considering classic Who quite often managed some very adult
characters.Sevrin was a tragic
hero, pure and simple; afraid but acting anyway, so notable.As always, these moments of heroism,
which could’ve been played in modern times for great emotion – too much emotion
– are played down here.They are
noted and you remember them, but they are not sentimentalised, there’s no
display about it.I think this is
what allowed a children’s programme to address so much death: it made it a
fact of life.Even tragedy was a
fact of life.The Doctor strove
against injustice and needless death and waste of life, but never dwelt
overly on it – he acted and he kept quiet – and jolly, mostly.

I’m unsure whether this is a cultural hangover from the ‘stiff upper lip’
English era, or whether it’s genuinely a more helpful way to get through
life and not be paralysed by tragic things: to accept death as simply part
of life, mourn and move on, playing up the good things and the joys of
companionship and adventures.Less
of the dwelling and endless analysis and examination and returning to
sadnesses over and over again, that we do now…If anyone wonders why I am
giving this quite so much thought, its because I’m an often very sad
person, so I take lessons where I find them…ACTUAL BOOK.)

Doctor Who: Dalek Empire Part 1 – The
Genocide Machine, by Mike Tucker (Big Finish monthly audios, no.7)
(Seventh Doctor. I wasn’t sure I was going to warm at all to this part of the Big Finish
audios – and was tempted to miss it out altogether, and continue with the
monthly stand alones.But when I
realised I was going to do a Dalek Special, I thought adding some audio in
would be a good way to break up the books – and to judge if a modern
approach to dalek’s while still within the framework of old Who, might
work better for me.This segment
certainly did.

It started well because the premise began with a hidden library and a
dotty librarian.I love libraries
[quiet ones that is – modern libraries seem to be getting increasingly
noisy and lacking in seats].This library
was an ‘aqueous data storage facility’, a ‘wetworks’.The entire knowledge of the universe had
been gathered into water.This
turns out to have a twist, of course, when it becomes clear that the water
is sentient – there’s a sort of raindrop race that can exist in any water
on this planet [including human, leading to some odd possession scenes of
dead bodies], and have been enslaved and maddened by the librarian,
who has been forcing them to be data storage mules.This is discovered when the Doctor almost dies and ends up
temporarily a rain creature himself, his consciousness in the wetworks for
a limited time.He is extremely
angry, in his sometimes self righteous [but usually correct] way, when he
regains human form and confronts the librarian.

That is the backdrop to the story of the daleks trying to access the
wetworks in order to gain all knowledge and use it to timetravel back and
forth infiltrating all events until they are masters of the universe [as
usual – why do villains never think this through; they would be very bored
when done and all is ‘perfect’].

Ace is duplicated and spends some time helping the daleks and doing a
creepy dalek voice – which you can tell Sophie Aldred enjoyed very
much.This segment did sit well
with me, because I enjoyed the planet Karshorak and the library set up, I
enjoyed the limited but well painted characters, and I enjoyed Ace helping
to sort everything out at the end via a well timed explosion to free rain
creatures and release the data. This was a good
beginning.

The daleks themselves had a good kill scene, where you remember how
ruthless and merciless they are – and it was allowed to go on just a few
seconds too long, so that you really felt the complete nature of the
massacre of the library staff, the distressing sterility of the universe
were the daleks to succeed.Sound
palette wise, I really enjoyed the sound of the dalek ship pulsing; that
was hypnotic and well done.I’m
actually looking forward to the next bit.There’s a first, dalek wise…ON DOWNLOAD.)

Doctor Who: The Apocalypse Element
[Dalek Empire, Part 2], by Stephen Cole (Big Finish Monthly Who audios,
no.11)(6th
Doctor. Oh dear oh dear – and after I started so well with the first in
this series.What was it that went
wrong here?I like Colin, always
have.Evelyn Smythe is a great
companion character, but those other than her original creator aren’t
writing her as bouncing off him in quite the same way – she has come across
the last 2 stories as a slightly querulous old lady smart arse , which I
find annoying and unnecessary.Considering she has a major plot role in this segment of Dalek
Empire, it’s even more bothersome.The re-emergence of Lalla Ward as Romana II should have saved this
story singlehanded [one of my favourite companions]…and she has some very
strong moments.But it didn’t save
it.

The weird thing about this audio was that I was very much poised to love
it – because I had liked the first one when I hadn’t expected to [plus the
tie-in Dalek Empire Big Finish
book, very much].And I was fully
present, striding up and down the living room listening, as it was pouring
with rain outside and I was exercising indoors – giving the story my full
attention. And yet it slid off me
repeatedly after episode 1.I often
felt I had no real clue who was where, saying what to who and why.I kept rewinding.

The plot was full of ideas both large and ambitious [to do with mining,
and an evil plan - dalek of course - to cause 2 planets to collide so no
one would know what they had been up to with them, and the interesting
introduction of the Monan Host, a new temporal power].The fact that the story concerns a
cleverly handled dalek invasion of Gallifrey itself; and that the
Timelords are as hidebound and corrupt as ever they were, being so eager
to get their hands on the Monan time technology any way they can [as power
over time must be kept in Gallifreyan hands of course], the whole thing should have had lots of enjoyment
for me.I love Gallifrey based
stories!I love Romana [either of
them]!I loved the ruthlessness of
the daleks [at one point they cut out someone’s eye to use it for its
retinal scan; later Evelyn becomes a retinal scan masterkey for everything
on Gallifrey, which amusingly annoys the snobbish and xenophobic
Timelords]!There were dalek
mutants, always interesting…there was the creation of a whole new area of
space, the Serephia – four times the size of the Milky Way – which falls
victim to what The Apocalypse
Element actually is (it’s a focussing thingy for the daleks, go
listen).

But…I kept realising I wasn’t following correctly.I actually listened to this story twice,
in the end [was quite long too, way over 2 hours].I was sure it was brilliant because it
had so many elements in it that I would usually like.And I certainly got it better second
time round; not that it was complicated.But I just kept ending up Bored, and I Cannot Quite Tell You
Why.I can just say you need to go
and try this one for yourself.It
bamboozled me.ON DOWNLOAD.)

Doctor Who: And The Day of the Daleks,
by Terrance Dicks (Target original)
(Third Doctor. There isn’t really much to say about this one, except that I always like
it when I watch it – a certain incident with cheese and crackers and a
Jason King level of early 70s cool aplomb always makes me laugh…this very
scene is completely absent from
the book!Which is treated much
more seriously, and as a good time travel yarn.Terrance Dicks stays close to the plot
and simply tightens all loose ends here.The daleks are as ruthless as ever, but the focus is on the humans
and how they react to them: do they collaborate, turn traitor, join a
resistance movement?This is the
angle that Big Finish extrapolated so well in their short story
collection; the human reaction to a threat of extinction and slavery.In this sense, this story, though much
maligned amongst Whodom [I don’t know why] – is actually, in my opinion, a
little unsung classic, a proper science fiction book, as it manages a
‘What If’ on 2 levels – not only a what would you do to take time back to
where it was, what would you sacrifice?; but also a general ‘What If’ the
world as we know it was overrun?Simple but lovely, I think this story is.ACTUAL BOOK.)

Doctor Who: Legacy of the Daleks, by
John Peel (BBC 8th Doctor Series)(Eighth Doctor. This one was a
decently, VERY decently written extrapolation of what happens some time
after the events ended in The Dalek
Invasion of Earth.It’s the end
of the 22nd century, the UK is split into 'domains',
there are knights , some of them are women – it’s sort of medieval, but
with technology…it all works for me.The way some things from the past are treasured and vital now –
cats are very useful and prized; and the way there’s still plenty of
technology but its used to fill gaps, the world is no longer so utterly reliant.The world is
understandably mixed up, old and new rubbing shoulders.A strangely convincing mishmash
world.This one also appealed to me
very much because The Master was in it – being satisfyingly short-termist
and dastardly as usual, and so was Susan, one of the most underused
companions ever – in a strong and vital role in the story.This whole outing felt thoroughly
plausible, and I liked it more than I would have otherwise because the
story cleverly did not revolve around the daleks actual presence – much of
it concerned stopping them from coming back, and what would happen if they
did.Power struggles amongst
humans, plots, revenge, pragmatism: more politics than fighting.Best John Peel I’ve so far read, and
more like this would be good. ACTUAL BOOK.)

Doctor Who: And the Dalek Invasion of
Earth, by Terrance Dicks (Target original)
(First Doctor. Huh.I did not expect this to be
the best dalek story I’ve ever read.Not sure why it was either.It did rattle along from the very first.I was annoyed that Susan immediately
sprained her ankle [no wonder she got fed up of the show and left – she
had such possibilities too]; but adored Barbara being so brave and
resourceful – the running through and over the dalek blockade, the using
of Dortmun’s plan’s to connive her way into the dalek control room to see
what was happening.Ian was doing
his usual resourceful action man stuff too, diverting a bomb from inside
the deployment tunnel when he gets stuck down there.There’s a wealth of new characters, most
of whom die, as is so often the case in Who.Noteworthy is the grumpy Jenny, who
reminded me of my idea of what I’d probably be like in such a situation –
I was glad she survived till the end, in order that she might be able to
live a less fraught and more peaceful life.

All the characters get separated early on, allowing Susan and David to
form a bond, prefacing her attachment to him and the Doctor shutting her
out of the TARDIS at the end because she wouldn’t have been able to leave
him otherwise.Its odd, considering
the way things are done nowadays on TV [and in life to an extent], that
something so emotionally charged as Susan falling in love and having to
choose between her grandfather and a man, and then the Doctor doing it for
her, which must have hurt very much…being dealt with in such a calm
and understated way.Its just…told.

[Like the end of Inferno – where
I felt the alternative world’s destruction could have been operatically
sad and tragic; but Terrance Dicks chose to write the tragedy quietly,
baldly and to not overwhelm the story, and the positive forward momentum
it needed – and the programme as a whole needs to move on.Also, come to think of it, a bit like
when the lovely Murray and the Navarino’s are all killed in Delta and the Bannermen, and this
is glossed over, more or less – Mel knows, but it’s not given much air
time.Maybe…shock horror…we all concentrate too much on tragedy these
days?And allow ourselves to be
crumpled by despair and futility in the face of it, instead of moving on
and acting for good?Dwelling too
much on tragedy makes us give up, instead of act.For that to happen, we need to know what happened, but not be held
down and back by the sadness of it…Ok, so I’m talking to myself here.But maybe it applies to other of us
too.What would The Doctor do?He’d get on with the next thing that
needed doing to make a good thing happen.Be it a selfish thing [Pertwee usually], or a good thing for
everyone else…]

Anyway – possibly because of the fact that everyone played an almost equal
part in this – all were resourceful, allacted and helped; possibly because the Doctor was indomitable in this one, really
impressive [physically and in terms of brain power]; and possibly because
the daleks were subsidiary to what the humans had to do to overcome them – so the story was
about their effect on us, rather than about them – I loved this one.Best dalek book ever!ACTUAL BOOK.)

Doctor
Who: The Evil of the Daleks, by John Peel
(Second Doctor. Oh my goodness.This one was the
weirdest reading experience I have ever had with a Doctor Who book –
weirder even than my very slow conversion to Paradise of Death.It
took me over 2 months to read this book in between other things, because
it just did not hold my attention till very late.[This is the reason for the delay of
this entire post – it was the
last thing I had planned for it and I just couldn’t progress at a decent
speed.]I found the whole Victorian
setting problematic, and I’m not sure why.Possibly because I was completely unimpressed with the
characterisation of either Waterfield or Maxtible, or Terrall. The way that Victorian characters of a certain class are usually presented on TV and in books as unbearably stuffy and longwinded, allied to the fact this was the 60s, this era of story - where there's still quite a bit of BBC stuffiness going on too...and you have 3 Extremely Stuffy Characters.

Waterfield angsted a lot without doing
anything until very late on, and because of the convoluted nature of the
plot [obviously related to the episodic structure of the original TV
episodes for this story] he just comes off as vacillating and
annoying.Maxtible seemed to think
himself quite clever and urbane and ruthless, yet failed to use this quick
mind to see he was quite obviously being lied to by an alien species with
no morality even vaguely related to humans – I think he made the mistake
of viewing the daleks as ‘amoral’ and therefore as susceptible to greed as
him.I read him as incredibly
deluded and stupid, and allied with his pomposity [and sudden skills as a
hypnotist at one point], I just found him very frustrating.Terrall was the oddest character of the
three.I didn’t feel he was written
consistently at all, and I didn’t feel that the inconsistencies were well
enough explained by the mind control device he was subsequently shown as
wearing.In one episode [the
pitchfork in the stable with Kennedy], I almost believed he was dead and
reanimated somehow.I found him and
his fiancé completely unconvincing.[Why would she even speak to him after his quite over the top
dressing down of Mollie in front of her?I don’t think that can be explained by Victorian attitudes toward
servants; surely the fiancé would have thought, ‘blimey, my Promised One
is acting insane – how does this bode for my marriage?’ and…maybe broken
it off???]

Now – that dealt with my problems with the book – mostly caused by 3 very
unlikeable [add Kennedy to that and you get 4] and confusingly written
characters who I didn’t understand enough to either love or loathe them –
they just irritated the hell out of me.There’s plenty about this book that after I got over the annoying appearances
of those three, I DID like.

I liked the Doctor’s odd behaviour in this book.Whilst he too was irritating me, as I like
to think I have a vague idea where the Doctor’s mind is most of the time,
I just like to think he’ll sort things out more tidily than me because he’s
quicker and more knowledgeable and more lateral thinking; his odd
compliance with the daleks was well focalised by Jamie’s distrust of
him.I felt for and with Jamie on
this.I didn’t get his behaviour
and I felt he could have explained it better.This is one of the ways in which
Troughton is the best Doctor for this story, because he always played each
story just a little differently; he was always a bit inconsistent as a
Doctor.He had his clowning and his
recorder and his funny faces – his little trademarks; but his underlying
seriousness and his manipulative tendencies [shown nicely in Tomb of the Cybermen in particular,
I thought] made him unknowable in some ways.That facet of his characterisation was a
strength in this story.Unlike
Maxtible and Terrall, I actually wanted
to know what the hell was up with the Doctor in this story.

The idea of the human factor and the dalek factor, the idea of experiments
to isolate each one didn’t grab me at all at first.But the more it went on – showcasing Jamie
and his loyalty, resourcefulness, co-operation [the alliance won through
respect with Kemel], and compassion [the way he felt for Victoria as a
person all alone in a scary situation; not just wanting to help her
because she was pretty, though no doubt that did her cause no harm]; I
started seeing what an interesting idea it was.Even though the Doctor was behind
matters, not realising the daleks were doing the opposite to their stated
intentions – actually trying to isolate the dalek factor NOT the human
factor, to make themselves stronger, I still found it interesting.The experiments were a good way to show
the daleks limited but thorough thinking, and their coldness; and a good
way to develop Jamie’s character, to have created relationships we cared
about with both Victoria and Kemel.His distrust of the Doctor was both understandable and protective, as
was his baseline morality, the “revulsion” at Maxtible when he discovers
what the betrayal was all about – alchemy of all things: all marvellous
stuff, and all prompted by the device of these experiments.

In their turn, the image of the original 3 daleks infected with the human
factor and shown to play trains with the Doctor, has really stuck in my
head.I can’t decide if its silly,
cute or poignant.Seeing them start
to learn and be as wilful and annoying – and sweet – as human children was
thought provoking.When the Doctor-instigated ‘revolution’ goes on at the end, I felt sad that the human
factor, now infecting so many daleks, was causing them to fight – it worked
for the Doctor and his party, they could escape during this, but it was
sad, in a way, to see the daleks reduced to the lowest level of humans:
fighting amongst themselves.That
sad little point was almost lost amongst the amusing nature of them
constantly saying ‘why?’ when told to obey, or ‘why not rebel?’ when told
to comply.Their innocent
questioning made it sound like they could have a future, but that future
was only being crushed by the non infected daleks; and if not – the trauma
of what fighting and killing does to a small human mind, if they had
survived, because they were still very much like tiny children.It was sad to see them
humanlike, as it didn’t reflect well on us, and it didn’t really give them
a better future either – even though John Peel had the Doctor speculate
that it could have done, at the end [as of course this novelisation was
much enlarged in terms of internal points of view, than the TV version
allowed].I felt this angle of the story raised
issues it didn’t fully or even partially deal with.Not that it needed to tie them up
neatly, but I felt it really didn’t follow its implications very far at
all.

In some ways, this story felt too long – too much in the 60s London
setting before the Doctor even met Waterfield in the shop, too much time finding
out that the Waterfield artifacts were actually new Victorian, and the
time travel cabinets etc, before getting to the Victorian setting.I found the most interesting parts
related to Skaro.But when it moved
along – during the experiment bits, and the bits related to the Dalek
Prime [a nice change to the later Davros, and reminding us that this story
was originally intended to be the last dalek outing], it did move
ahead with quite a will and pace.By
the end I was enjoying it and eager to know what would happen next.And because this is one of the most sought after of the famous Missing Episodes of Who [we only have 1 ep extant], this book is the closest we'll come to this story, unless a copy is eventually found, somewhere. ACTUAL BOOK.)

The overall thing
I’d say about my experiment in themeing here, reading lots of books about the
same villain all at once, was that I did
become impressed by the variety of stories the daleks can be a cause for.I started to see that whilst they do
undeniably irritate me – it’s their monotone voices and their rigidity of
movement, rather than what they do or stand for: i.e it’s a visual/auditory
problem; their actual use as a plot device is brilliant.The way you can bounce human behaviour off
reaction to the daleks is very good.They might not look scary, but in the right hands, a story with them as
the opposition can be genuinely wrenching.Most of these stories took war, preparations for war, or the aftermath of
war, as the starting point.And they would: the daleks are all about domination
on a universal scale, their disinterest in reasoning and their inbuilt
insistence on their own supremacy and intellect leave no option for dealing
with them but all out war of one form or other.The variety of reactions this brings about in humans was the thing that
made these stories so interesting.

As far as
interaction with the Doctor, they are such a pure villain for him because he
opposes any interference with free will (not necessarily development, just the free will of it), therefore you know his
brain will be engaged in some labyrinthine scheme to oppose them, whether we as
readers or watchers understand it or not (particularly the case in Evil of the Daleks).The way those plans twine or not with the
humans he meets are also a vital part of these stories.In Dalek
Invasion of Earth, so much opposition was going on all at once, with or
without the Doctor, that it was just a heartening and hearty read from the
point of view of being a human – we showed ourselves off well!As Sevrin did in Genesis – the heroism we humans can write for others, for an oppressed and violated 'other' in this case, is
always good to be reminded of in these times where greed and a warped over individualism
(instead of a healthy but integrated sense of self) is emphasized.

I don’t like the
daleks themselves any better than I did – and you know how it is FUN to
lovingly loathe a villain?! – but I understand them more.And I definitely see their continued
releavnace in the Who universe.As long
as we all fear being taken over and enslaved, fear the lack of reason and
unquestioning, fear the bleakness of a world of grey with no laughter – then the
daleks will remain relevant as a story device.Its been instructional.And I’ve
read some books I liked very much!

***

Next up: some more
of the regular Doctor Who readathon.

My
next Who Special will be a Companions
one – but I haven’t even started reading
for that one yet, just planned out what will be read (and heard), so don’t hold
your breath.You might not get that one
till winter is back!

Monday, 14 July 2014

Actually, that title is a bit misleading,
unintentionally.I thought I’d never been to another convention, but from how Saturday
was, I think I have.I’ve been twice to
Witchfest International (Fairfield Halls, Croydon, every November), and Saturday’s
expedition shared an awful lot in common with Witchfest (except carpets and
aircon, notably).

I didn’t intend to spend my Birthday Day Outing at a
convention, it was all very happenstance.My actual birthday got derailed quite considerable by Fluffhead having a
vomity bug.Thankfully this cleared up
by the weekend, so I could still have Stanley’s
mum over to babysit, while we wondered off out.I was feeling a bit glum, as I hadn’t planned to go anywhere, and Stanley’s mum had been a
bit (2 hours) late, which shaved some of the rare available time.I was thinking we would just wander about the
West End, desultorily shopping and having a nice lunch – but you know, nothing
I hadn’t done a thousand times before, back when I had a life.So, bit of a case of the birthday glooms
hitting me.

Till we were on the train to London Bridge and I commented
to Stanley that the comic shop newsletter I subscribe to had a Summer Special I
could add to my collection – but that it was probably already gone, as theirs
get snapped up quickly (girls comics Summer Specials are a weird breed – they
can go for £2-3, or £100, depending on the day and who's competing for it;
hugely variable market – I sell my duplicates so I can vouch for this).Stanley, who expressed a great joy that I
didn’t want to go to Mysteries and spend his money on ‘woo woo’ crap, approved
of my sudden comic mention, and told me to call the shop and see if the Special
was still there.It was (unusual), so we
changed direction, and started heading to Putney instead of the West End.

We hit travel problems at Earls Court, when the District Line bit
we needed was closed for maintenance, so we had to go and get a rail
replacement bus.Which was how I came to
find a Gallifreyan at the top of the stairs at Earls Court, and a Poison Ivy, and then a
Spiderman – all life size, real, increasingly sweaty people.And a TARDIS.Stanley
started to get skittish, sensing, as I did, a convention close by, and almost
didn’t want to take a pic of me with the TARDIS, but he relented, so I stood
demurely infront of it and tried not to look too excited at the juncture of TV,
book and BlackberryJuniper’s headspace.I took a pic of the Gallifreyan (very handsome and regal and about 50 –
and American, only too happy to have his picture taken).I asked a passing victim of zombie apocalypse
where this obvious convention was, and dribbling a little bit of quite
authentic looking blood, she told me to go through the station and out the
other side and follow the world’s largest queue.“Or the weird people”, rightly interjected
her companion dressed as Sherlock Holmes, momentarily removing his pipe from
his 15 year old looking mouth.

Thus began one of my Most Legendary Nags and Beggings.All the way to the comic shop (which took
ages as the roads were dreadful, the bus crawled along for an hour in
sweltering humidity, completely packed with cross people), I badgered and
squealed and explained repeatedly how much fun a convention would be.For me.Stanley
had done this entire scene, especially with the Doctor Who elements in the long
distant past, and loftily expressed a wish to not anymore be near “the freaks
and the dispossessed”.Which actually
excited me more, as if that isn’t a dead ringer description of me, what
is?Clearly my tribe of peoples were in
that convention.I stepped up the
nagging.He started laughing.It was actually clinched when we got to the
comic shop, and amidst stunning birthday generosity in terms of Summer
Specials, Stanley was informed by one of the owners that George Romero (the man
who single handedly kicked off the zombie revival with the iconicNight
of the Living Dead and sequels) would be there, doing signings.And Stan Lee.(Who I misheard as ‘Stanley’ to which I
said ‘Stanley
who?’ and made everyone laugh.)The air
on the subject visibly warmed.

I badgered a bit more on the crawly bus on the way back, to
the point where I got Stanley to concede that we could go to the outside of the
convention, London Film and Comicon, and find a programme leaflet – to see if
it was worthwhile going in, if he’d missed George Romero or not.So we got to Earls Court and wandered about –
following the trail of ever more amazingly dressed people, people who must be
passionate about these characters or they would not be sweating this much in
heavy boots, cloaks and headpieces.We
found the queue and goggled at the length of it.And the camping out look of a lot of it.People huddled under big sun umbrellas (it
was crashing down heavy, the sun, that day); sitting down and looking tranced
out at having been there so long.The
queue did not appear to be moving at all.So we went to the front of it and in my usual chatty way, I accosted a
blue dressed bouncer man, and asked for a leaflet with the programme on.Apparently you only get that when you’ve paid
to go inside.Which I thought was pretty
stupid; then again, either it was online and everyone knew who was where and
exactly when already, or they didn’t care and were all here on the offchance of
seeing someone they liked at the time they happened to be here (as I assumed no
one would come if they didn’t know the actual star names they would be
seeing?).

So we stood there, and watched some people who’d been in
already come out, and other’s who been out and were going back in having the
handstamps or wristbands checked.And
the hugely long queue, bottlenecking to one side.Some one tripped over and the girl manning
the door in front of it went to help one of her colleagues pick up a cloaky
wiggy platform booted pile of people.Stanley, not missing a
beat, just strolled through the unmanned door and turned back to look at me
with his eyebrows raised.So I followed,
feeling excited and naughty and rather bad.And convinced I was about to be caught and arrested.Wouldn’t it be cute if I got a criminal
record for breaking into Comicon without paying??(Costs £15 to get in, let alone all the
temptations inside.)Fry will find that
last statement hilarious, since we have had the evading fares on the bus
argument from when he was at school for about 12 years now.And yes, neither of us got caught in either
scenario.But I’m usually far too
stressful a passenger to NOT pay for things I’m sposed to.

Once in, the first thing that struck me was that despite
there being thousands of people in
this huge aircraft hanger of a room, they had not put the aircon on, at
all.It was close like a
tropical rainforest.The air felt thick
and liquid.I immediately felt
claustrophobic and oppressed.As far as
I could see, were massive rows of stalls selling (TOOT yells Stanley in
passing)…memorabilia of all sorts –
scifi, horror, comics, comic books, young adult novels, DVDs, videos, trading
cards, second hand books, games, T-shirts, plushy toys.Bit of a lack of food, but I saw some later around
the edges.(This is the resemblance to
Witchfest beginning and ending in layout – they usually have one large traders
room, like a big market, off to one side, and then talks and signings take
place in other rooms, with a large area in the middle for eating and
socialising.This place was such a large
room, everything was more or less in the one place, just on an epic sort of a
scale.An epically large market of toot
memorabilia.I was starting to feel
overcome with humidity and swilled half a bottle of water straightaway.Stanley
said, “See, not all that…”And I agreed
we’d just walk about the hall once to see what else there was and go, as it was
SO uncomfortable, heatwise.

It just didn’t turn out that way.We found a big wall diagram saying who was
where and when – we appeared to have missed George Romero altogether; but a
passing immensely tall Riddler said the times were all off this year and we
might as well go check who was where.He
had moved off by the time Stanley
was saying to thin air, “But where are the signings then?”, only to have a
Chewbacca point to the far side of the huge hall and say “at the back,
mate”.Righty then, off we went, through
the Market of Highly Expensive but Strangely Tempting Toot of Allsorts.It took about 15 minutes to get through it as
it was jammed up in some places with clumps of people socialising (I saw a Zena
Warrior Princess getting a very slick chat up from a Han Solo who had some
gorgeous boots on, and two Nightcrawlers were getting quite intimate in their
lycra).Everyone was polite and
smiley.We shuffled along till we got
through the Market.

Out the other end was a smidgeon more air, only because the
vast space wasn’t sectioned off so much, I think.And here another spectacle.All around the edges of the hall were booths
with A, B, C etc on them in huge letters and long windy queues snaking from
them.I went up to the nearest one and
asked what the queue was for.Personal
pics with Stan Lee was one; personal pics with John Hurt (many famous roles;
and the War Doctor, for cult purposes) was another.They were sectioned off so people couldn’t
cheat and get pics on their phones without paying for them.There were loads of these sectioned off
fabric blacked out areas and it fleetingly reminded me of the one time I went
to Amsterdam,
and there were similar queues snaking about out of Red Light District
houses.Then again, I suppose this is a
lot of what a convention is about – money changing hands so people can touch
their dream realities, feed on them before Monday sets in.

Around the rest of the walls and middle section were massive
lines of trestle tables.Quite squashed
up along these, were a ‘celebrity’ or ‘star’ (some of them were, some of them
weren’t, hence my apostrophes) of film, TV or book, and beside each one was a
blue topped manager type person, who basically took the money.You would queue – for however long (these are fans don’t forget, insane scifi fans; my
heart warmed to see them and their fanaticism, and very English orderly
queueing) to see the person you wanted, and when you got to the head of the
queue, you would give money to the blue topped person who would tick you off on
the list, and then you’d step to the side and engage in a seconds long
conversation with whoever you were Loving Enough to Queue That Long To See.You get a quick few words, a choice of
photos, of which you pick one and get a short personalised message from your
star of choice, then you move along thankyou
thankyou and that’s that.Ejected
sideways, queue moves on, you look lovingly at your pic with YOUR NAME on it,
and then put it away and avariciously start sizing up the other queues, for who
you want to repeat the process with.The
cost of these autographs and/or photo shoots varied.Carrie Fisher was £65 (icon woman)…Stan Lee
came out second (I see why despite not being a comic book person) at £45;
George Romero at £30 (which I actually thought was hugely reasonable seeing as
I love his films and his effect on the genre of horror cannot be underestimated – really if he and Dario Argento stood there
together, they could have charged mortgages).Most people, actors, were charging £15 per
mini chat and autograph; some £10.

We wandered about, me goggling completely at all the people
I recognised (oooo, look, Michael Biehn of Terminator
– and he still looks so good, and look, his body language is so natural and he
has a nice smile, seems like a nice person, that’s nice – flowing through my
head), and all the people I didn’t (look that’s…no its not, who is that?).Until, just as the Riddler had accurately and
clearly (for once) prophesied, there sat George Romero alone at a table at the
end of one side of the hall, signing pictures quietly – without even any queue
at all.Because he wasn’t sposed to be
there, it was the wrong time.Stanley
beelined saying “I’d know those glasses anywhere”, and I followed happily,
gawping at the costumes and the actors (I couldn’t decide what was more
thrilling – TV and film people in the same room as me, therefore effectively
living my kind of life which elevates my
life of course; don’t go crapping on my logic with pity, please), or the
wondrousness of all the cool people who got into these brilliantly done
costumes, some clearly homemade at great time and detail expense, and who
must’ve come here wearing them, braving the sneers of the sad and therefore
angry people who think grown ups should always be grown up.I came down on the side of the costume
wearers in the end simply because there were more of them and they were just so
stunning and inventive (a Transformer made from cardboard; a Cat Woman with a
beautifully painted face and arms; someone who moved and looked the image of
Arrow; some incredibly realistic zombies; an awful lot of Game of Thrones
characters – whose costumes must have been the hottest, all the cloaks and faux
fur in that heat…).

I counted eleven Matt Smith Doctor incarnations on the way
to George Romero, and four Sylvesters.A
girl in a TARDIS dress skipped past, and then we were at the table.Stanley
stood in front of it, momentarily silent.I watched.They spoke a bit, just
a little bit.The room had odd
acoustics, in that you could hear perfectly, people talking from half the room
away, but you had to lean quite close to hear the person standing next to
you.Stanley shook hands with Mr Romero and their
conversation was over; I hadn’t heard it.He asked the blue top next to him how much the autographs were – it was
more than we currently had between us.This is a warning to newbies: take lots of cash, they don’t accept cards
and don’t have the machines.Woe betide
you if you need to use the cash machine in the Hall…it will charge you money to
get at your money, and the queue will decimate your will to live.We hadn’t expected to be here, so had hardly
any cash on us.Stanley was directed to the cash machine, a
world away.I said I’d stand guard and
make sure Mr Romero didn’t try to escape.(The Blue Top looked at me crossly, as if I was being disrespectful.)Mr Romero laughed and looked up at me.He had a very twinkly smile.I asked him if he did many conferences like
this (the English equivalent of a boring weather question; internally I did a
big DOH, but that was what came out,
so I had to let it stand there).He
replied, very drily, “not many”, and carried on signing his photos. I asked if he enjoyed working the same genre
for such a long time, if he still felt inspired by it, and loved all the
emulations he had caused.He lost me
half way through and rose a bit out of his chair and gave me his ear, at which
point I realised he was having acoustics plus a bit of deafness.I repeated as best I could remember and he
nodded and said he loved his work still, at which point I actually got
starstruck and ran out of things to say.

I noticed as well, that I had called him ‘Sir’, something I
used to do with difficult clients at work, as it always helps for difficult
people to feel they are dealing with a respectful underling.I hadn’t done it for that reason here, I was
being respectful to an elder who knew a lot of stuff; also, I realised it
seemed more pertinent to address an American grandee this way than the
informality I habitually use with anyone
English – my nosy quirkiness usually breaks the ice for most English people,
but I might not translate culturally, I had thought.I shook his hand (nice handshake, firm but
gentle) and told him it was an honour to meet him (which it was in a funny
unexpected way), and then I retired to the side to wait for Stanley, not having
asked ANY of the brilliant incisive questions that then occurred to me about his films.

I did ask his blue topped guardian if I could take a picture
on my phone, and she said when my boyfriend came back and paid I could.So I stood about, getting very thirsty and
watched the costumes and the lines of other star signers, contemplating this
very bottom line capitalism and thinking, fair
enough.Especially for the actors
and performers, their image itself, their likeness is their product; things
they sign or touch are almost like little literal bargaining chunks OF them.So I see the fuss, I get it.Didn’t stop lots of people craning round
behind me and using me as a tree to hide behind so they could sneak pics.

While I stood there, it seemed hundreds of people continued
to appear infront of me.The hall was
getting so packed I started to think about Health and Safety.No chance of me getting nabbed for breaking
in; how would they find me amidst the thousands?(And a troupe of The 300 that roamed past,
clanking and oiled.)A thin bearded man
pushing a very large woman dressed in red in a wheelchair came and stood next
to me looking awestruck.“Is that George
Romero?”He asked in a squeaky voice
with big eyes, all innocent.I
nodded.“Oh my god, I love him!”He smiled the hugest smile, and looked 12
though he must have been about 25.I
smiled back at him and agreed where would the world be without Dawn of the Dead?“There’d be no Walking Dead, that’s for sure”, the man enthusiastically nodded,
and started trying to count his money.I
told him it was £30, and he looked downcast.I told him my boyfriend had disappeared to the cashpoint queue about,
er…fifteen minutes ago…The large woman in the wheelchair adjusted her position
and growled something at me, “Sorry?” I said, getting the impression from her
body movements that this was someone to whom one deferred.The thin bearded man looked alarmed and
smiled at me and said, “What, mum?”

“They give the dead a bad name, they do, shows like that,”
She nodded and glared at me very definitively, like she was up for a fight.

“They certainly do,” I said automatically, squelching any of
my questions about the logic of dead people caring about TV.The bearded man smiled softly, looking even
younger.“This is my sister Laura,” he
said, and nodded me to a moonfaced woman who looked just like him, with a clear
quiet smile and pleasant sleepy eyes.I
said hi.They all stared at George
Romero for a minute in total silence then the mother stamped her foot on the
floor and glared up at the young man, whose face was now red, showing up a lot
of eczema.He looked put upon but
malleable, still gazing at his idol.“A
Bad Name!” she repeated.“I want to go
home, it’s too hot in here,” she finished, and he nodded and started to turn
the wheelchair.“Oh, bye,” I started to
wave at him, and he shook hands with me and started to move away, trailing
Laura behind him.Then he abruptly
changed his mind, ran back and gave me the sweetest bear hug from a person I
don’t know, that I’ve ever had.“It’s so
nice to meet you,” he said, his eyes tearing a little, before disappearing into
the massed crowd, and I listened to his mother’s bass voice cut through as they
went: “Get out of the way!Get out!”…into the distance.There was something very Rob Zombie family
dynamic about the whole encounter, but, what a nice man…

I looked up to see Stan Lee going past behind George Romero,
head down, hands in casual jacket pockets, looking very tired and rather fed
up.Seized by star madness I called out,
“Hi!Mr Lee, hello!” quite loudly and he
turned to my manic shiny face (and I am not even into graphic novels) and
looked at me like – ‘who are you?’, before carrying on without breaking a beat,
to his seat further on, past Anthony Head.He was followed by what looked like five actual Men in Black (to Mr
Romero's one – all of whom had those little earpiece things with curly
seethrough plastic wiring, all of whom were looking about, for, er, threats I
suppose).I stood for a minute longer,
worrying about the fact that Paul McGann (the 8th Doctor, as well as
The Monocled Mutineer and Withnail and I) was supposed to come
back for a signing at quarter to 5 and it was half 4 and I wasn’t in a line and
judging by the way things seemed to work at these events, queueing was THE
business of the day.I looked over at
Carrie Fisher’s massive windy queue to her photo booth – I hadn’t seen her at
all, but she and Stan Lee were the major draws here, and from what I’ve later
read, the singular reason why this years event went crazy – apparently 3 times as many people came as last
year – prebook sales AND on the door comers, purely down to the attendance of
these two stars.So I had seen one, and
been glared at by them (cool!).Didn’t
look like I was going to get to Carrie Fisher before the day closed even if I
did have £65 for a photo or autograph (which I didn’t).Her queue had gone completely mad and was
spiralling quite prettily, bumping up against all the other queues that were
also long, but in straight lines, rows.

I turned round, bumped full face on with a very realistic
Predator who hissed at me and caught me by the wrists so I wouldn’t tumble
over.I thanked him, and a tinny tiny high
pitched voice from inside said: “This one’s free, next time I kill you!”I nodded warily and he thrust me to one side
and strode off looking very impressive, into a crowd of small children dressed
as Hobbits who clearly had no idea who he was supposed to be and looked on
wonderingly.I texted Stanley and asked
where he was in the queue, as Mr Romero was looking rightfully tired and was
running low on photos.He texted back he
was 7th in line now, stuck behind a dumpy Alice in Wonderland. I texted that I had to
go and get in the Paul McGann line or I wouldn’t get to see the sexiest Doctor
(bar Jon Pertwee of course).I said bye
to Mr Romero, who adjusted his glasses and gave me a sweet smile and carried on
signing, chatting with two fans who had come from different directions but both
bought copies of the exact same old film book for him to sign – a lovely
coincidence; there was laughing and smiling.

I started trying to get to the other side of the room.This was very difficult.The lines bisected the entire room in rows
that almost blended, and most people were standing in groups, clumps.Carrie Fisher’s line continued to insanely
bisect a lot of the other lines.Lots of
Blue Tops buzzed about trying to discipline the lines.I passed Anthony Head’s line, wishing I could
queue for him.I noticed his queue moved
very slowly because he was properly chatting, in an animated and child like
happy way, with all his fans, answering sometimes quite detailed Buffy and Merlin and Little Britain
questions.He seemed perfectly happy to
chat and very relaxed.He was one of
those rare people with a very young and curious vibe coming off him – he wasn’t
bored yet.I didn’t blame many of the other actors for
looking bored – it was getting hotter and hotter, very humid, some had no one
standing in their lines, while next to them was someone like Michael Madsen (Reservoir
Dogs etc) with a big fat line (he was very smiley and solid looking,
nodding brow furrowed to those talking to him; he had a deep rumbly laugh and
very white teeth).

I saw Summer Glau from Firefly
had a poster, but wasn’t in her seat; neither were 3 members of The Walking Dead cast, but a forth,
Lawrence Gilliard Jnr, sat happily chatting to the Blue Top next to him, as if
he had all the time in the world, between punters – he had a drifting queue, it
came and went.Jay of Jay and Bob had his head down, busily
signing and nodding to the queue of overwhelmingly teenage boys and men in their
30s.He looked so serious, unexpectedly.Juliet Landau (Buffy, Angel) sat looking very slim and extremely regal and I was
gutted I didn’t have enough money to get her autograph.I tried to wave, but she was holding the hand
of a small girl and looking sweetly at her while chatting to her mum.I finally squeezed over to the Paul McGann
queue, 5 minutes early.This was clearly
far too late as the queue had become mammoth.I bumped into a Super Mario and said sorry; it wasn’t quite clear where
the end of the queue was.A very distressed
and clearly stressed Blue Top came to inform Super Mario and me that we were on
the wrong bit of ground.

“Anything past this line on the ground,” he said, indicating
some tape, “and you have to come back later.My supervisor says this line is too long, it breaches Health and Safety”
(which I quite agreed with, though this line was nothing compared to Stan Lee’s
and Carrie Fishers!).

“But, but...”I said,
casting about for a reason to stay exactly where I was since it took me 10
minutes to move across the room in the first place, “But Super Mario is
injured,” I said, pointing to his cast I had just noticed, on his foot, and his
crutch.“You can’t throw him out of the
queue…and…It’s my birthday!” I finished rather lamely.

The people in the queue in front saved us, by turning round
and saying, “we’re a group, they’re with us.”

“Yes," I chirruped back to the ever more stressed Blue Top,
“apparently we’re a group and can’t be separated”.

Muttering that he reallywasn’t getting paid enough for this shit
(turns out his age group got only £300 for 3 days work of which 2 were 12 hour
days – that IS a bit slave labour) he clumped off.And I chatted relentlessly in my thoroughly
buzzed out way, to the gentle Super Mario, who seemed a bit surprised but not
too worried that a strange woman was just rabbitting at him.We talked of new and old Who, and Steven
Moffat, and RTD and whether Capaldi would make a difference to the feel of
things.The line didn’t move.It became apparent Paul McGann was late, and
annoyed Blue Top came to theatrically tell us this, his fists screwed up in the
corner of his tired eyes.

“Bad news, guys,” he said as we carefully stepped over that
taped line again (we had shuffled back to not crowd the group in front when he
went away).

“Ok, so tell us before we get heat stroke,” I said, wiping
my forehead for the third time that minute.

“He’s late!”He
declaimed, waving his arms for emphasis.

“He’s still coming though?”We all made worried face, and I became aware I had a killing back
ache.

“Yes, he’s just doing photo
shoots with other fans,” said
Blue Top, in a not entirely pleasant way, and wandered off muttering, “Oh yes, Mr McGann, we REALLY loved your
film in 1990, get a life you sad….” And I lost the rest.He was quite funny.

I resumed chatting to Super Mario, and eventually, after 20
minutes (still no sign of Stanley, who had now been in the cashpoint queue for
55 minutes and counting), our line started to move, and at quite a pace.I craned round and sure enough, someone with
messy curly brown hair and a black sweater (in this heat?!) had sat down and
was nodding enthusiastically at people while wielding a black marker.I started clapping, and then remembered the applicable
birthday was 43, and stopped, confining myself to grinning stupidly.

“What are you going to say to him?” asked Super Mario (whose
foot was the result of a loft falling incident; a good story to tell grandchildren
if ever I heard one).I realised I was
so tired, so hot and so clearly past my comfort level of Dignified Behaviour in
the presence of all these interesting Hitherto Imaginary Screen People, that I
had no clue.I started thinking, which
was also difficult.I finished my 3rd
bottle of water and we got to the head of the queue.Super Mario gentlemanly tried to let me go
first, but he was definitely before me, and this line had been a bitch, so I
insisted he go first, crutch and all.

Suddenly I was before Paul McGann, who was insanely
beautiful in a very real and dignified kind of way – a face with much life
lived on it.He had laughing eyes, like
he wasn’t taking all this incredibly seriously, was getting a bit tired, but
was happy enough.I did the grinning
thing, then found my voice and asked him if he thought I should take the Withnail and I pic of him, or the him
and Grace in the TARDIS pic, from the TV movie.

“Oh I can’t decide that,” he laughed.“You could always pick this grumpy looking
man here,” he quipped, pointing to the pic of him from the webisode Anniversary
bit: a very scowly pic.

I chose Grace and him and the TARDIS, figuring Fluffhead
would recognise this best when I showed him.He asked my name, and his accent was fascinating.Not Scouse at all as I expected it; really
well spoken, but with a lilt of deep Irish (?) underneath.He had a beautiful voice, it had layers.I chuntered on, telling him I thought he had
been a really good Doctor, a very interesting gentle vibe, and I was sorry they
hadn’t done more work with him, and did he think he’d be doing anymore, other
than Big Finish?

“Well,” he smiled lazily at me with his kindly face, “that’s
the thing with Doctor Who, with the time travel and no one need really be dead
– you can always come back, I’m open to it…”

“Are you being cryptic?” I pointed at him and he
laughed.

“Not at all,” he shook his head.

“Do you still enjoy it; all this mad Doctor Who work fuelled
at the beginning by the fact the show has crazed fans?” I asked.

“I don’t do anything I don’t like,” he smiled, and blew
gently on the ink for my pic, handing it to me.

Someone behind me trod on me.I got the message.I put my hand out, and he shook it, still
smiling in a very peaceful and humourous way, as I told him it was a real
pleasure to meet him.

“You too,” he said, and I was off to the side and it was
over, and Super Mario was asking me what I had said, and I was struggling to
remember.

My hand was all tingly, and I looked at Paul McGann’s
handwriting, trying to decipher the secrets of his personality from the loops
and circles.I suddenly felt like Super
Mario and I were definite kindred spirits – I had been right, these nutters were
all My People.And I too, was a frantic crazed nutter
fan.Quite a peaceful realisation.Super Mario and I realised we were about to
go in separate directions, and exchanged names for facebook finding.I was sorry to see him limp away, but I had
taken a pic of him, so he was immortalised in my day.I realised I hadn’t taken a pic of Paul
McGann, and saw there was a sign saying ‘No Posed Photos’, which I took to
mean, if you want to stand next to
him you have to go to the photo shoot bit and pay the £15 for that, separate to
the autographing.I leant over and asked
if I could snap him signing the autographs.

“Sure, take an action shot,” he smiled, and asked the name
of the next in the line, who was dressed as Blade and very short.I did.

I realised there was STILL no Stanley, so I wandered, meandered and
apologised my way across the lines (all still massive, no change) to get back
across to George Romero’s spot. Once I
emerged from several Avatars I saw Mr Romero was gone – and Stanley had been in that damn queue all this time
– an hour and 5 minutes now!I asked the
Blue Top guardian if he was coming back today.“Not today, it got too hot and he was tired, enough for now,” she
explained, which was quite fair enough.I had just realised I hadn’t eaten since breakfast which was a definite
thousand years ago.I texted Stanley,
feeling quite bad, as George Romero was the only reason he had come in, really
– though at least they had spoken and shaken hands.Magically, he appeared by my side and I
hugged him and said sorry for the pointless wait.He was sanguine, as Stanley surprisingly is, sometimes, taking it
in his stride.We agreed we were
starving and should leave and get something to eat.

We started winding round the rest of the room to have one
last look before going. He spied Anneke
Wills (‘Polly’, companion of the 2nd Doctor, Patrick Troughton),
sitting languidly talking on her phone, along a side wall, with a quietly
respectful mini queue of all men in the 40s and 50s in long coats and scruffy
jackets.We went and stood quietly
there, waiting.The men drifted away and
she finished her phone conversation and looked up at us with a genuinely
friendly welcoming smile.Stanley had
met her years ago, and she remembered him and they chatted a while (“Its not
usually like this,” she gestured at the massed thronging people and the far off
ceiling, lack of air, “its ..well, I’m not sure what’s up this year,” she
shrugs with an oh well
expression).Stanley and she talk about
Philip Morris and the Missing Episodes Saga, and Power of the Daleks.She’s
of the opinion that the more of us who think its there, the more likely it is
to actually be there, regardless of if it isn’t there for us to see at the
moment…I am so heatstruck by this time that this makes absolute perfect sense
to me (and still does in retrospect – its positive thinking, really, and in
absence of any info, might as well be positive).She was very sweet when she heard it was my
birthday and as we left, she sang Happy Birthday to me, while waving us goodbye
(she also wrote Happy Birthday on my autograph).What an exceptionally nice person.She told Stanley about another event in
October she thought we’d enjoy, that’s much smaller, and we could meet more
specifically Who people, and even Tom Baker (who is increasingly becoming a
rarity due to age and health).We waved
and she turned to another man.

I found a man in my path sweating huge beads of sweat all
over his bald head and looking very green.I gave him what remained of my 4th bottle of water, and hoped
they had St John’s
Ambulance here (they must do with this lack of ventilation and heat?).We moved off.I fannned myself with a flyer for author Kit Cox’s new book about
Jabberwocks – he was dapper and suited and very friendly, over on the author
section, pointing out to me that his flyer was both great promotion and also
great as a heat controller being made of strong board, not lacklustre thin
paper.When I got home, I promptly
bought his book, as he was so kind and resourceful.

We got round to the other side of the wall of celebrities
and actors, and I see Lita – ex WWE diva and extremely good and underrated
female wrestler (this year into their Hall of Fame).I can’t believe she’s there, all by herself.There are sposed to be some other wrestlers present,
I see from the posters above the seats, but she’s all alone, chatting to her
Blue Top.I take my last money and
determine to get Fry such a great present of her – as when we both used to
watch wrestling regularly, we LOVED her.Not only was she astonishingly fit (in both recognised senses of the
word), but nimble and feisty – she never came across as a doll or sex object
without any personality – she owned her presentation, her attitude and her
stories, and she was a kickarse character in that universe.I bound up to her announcing how amazed I am
she is there.She is the calmest person,
in fact, I might even say she could well be bored to death and I may even be
heightening her boredom.Nevertheless, I
press on, with some semi intelligent stuff about how she helped to
revolutionize the presentation of female wrestling in a very male oriented and
sexist arena, and we loved her unique persona etc.It’s odd, but unlike anyone else I met at the
convention, I felt like there was a complete wall between me and her.I felt she maybe wanted to go home (she was
far from home of course), and maybe she’d just had enough for the day (entirely understandable).She was completely polite, but I felt I’d hit
a wrong note when I asked after what I’d heard to be a film career after she
left wrestling, and she remarked shortly, “No, I just retired”.She didn’t mention her band, or
anything.Yet – she was the only famous
person I met all day, who happily let me take a pic of her with me, and didn’t charge extra or say it wasn’t allowed.Before me, she’d been having a pic with a
family and a baby, and I don’t think she charged at all.She was kind and generous, if fed up.I picked the sexiest pic for Fry I could, and
she did break a grin at it (her Blue Top sniggered at my choice), and handed it
to me with an “I hope he likes it,” to which I could not overemphasize how he
REALLY REALLY will adore it.

We passed Susannah Harker next, and I told her that despite
being utterly out of money now, I just wanted to tell her I thought she was
great in Ultraviolet and the
legendary Colin Firth version of Pride
and Prejudice, and that I wished I saw more of her on TV, because when she’s
in something I always know it will be good, and will watch it.Then I apologised for being gushy, and she
gracefully said “we actors need a lot of praise” with a wink, which made me
feel like less of a twit.I think I did
however continue to gush slightly, till Stanley
pulled me away, with her saying how happy she was that people still remembered Ultraviolet as its subtlety had always
been one of her favourites.

I caught a glimpse of Charlie Higson (The Fast Show, comedian actor and author, multi genre) peacefully
signing copies of his books and chatting to some teenagers, before we were back
into the Hall of Extremely Expensive Toot/Memorabilia, and at last seemed to be
leaving.We were only there for less
than 3 hours, and yet it seemed like an eternity – a day at least.As we broke out into the sun, and Some Actual
Fresh Air, I realised I’ve found a new (and horrifically expensive) hobby.I want to go to ALL the conferences!I want to Starchase and compliment regular people
on their costumes, and Actors/ Writers/ Directors on their acting/ writing/
directing and the pleasure they give me.I want to be photographed with people who have had an effect on my life
and the way I think – and I don’t want them to be always unreal and on a screen
and never present. I want to shake their hand sometimes and thank them for
helping my head, for making me laugh.

It wasn’t till we got home later and I looked up the LFCC on
the net that I realised I had missed one of my favourite actors – I simply hadn’t seen Robert Knepper’s
poster!One of the most versatile and
underrated actors I know of, and I was in the same room with him and I didn’t
know!!Can’t believe it!And he seems just the sort of person to NOT be overwhelmed by the amount of
gushing admiration I can give out!And
if I had been able to go on Sunday I could have taken my Paul Cornell and Ben
Aaronovitch books too, and got them signed – I could have met the pixie like
and incredibly talented Holly Black, whose books I eat up whole in one
sitting.I could’ve met Colin Baker (6th
Doctor)!!!If I had even known the event
was occurring, on Friday night, I could’ve met William Russell (Ian Chesterton,
1st Doctor Companion).I
goggled and ohhh noooooooed at the
wonders I’d missed and promptly started a piggy bank for next year.

It was a weird and wonderful intersection between everyday
reality and total fantasy.Its very
scale meant it hadn’t become cliquey or strata-ed – though I was aware some people
had priority gold passes for things, none of that had affected me.

I think I’m hooked.I
loved this, I felt at home, I felt unfreakish surrounded by the other
obsessives; everyone was kind and friendly and helpful.What a good birthday I got, in the end.